{"id":153242,"date":"2020-10-16T09:30:18","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T13:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-whats-the-point-of-heaven\/"},"modified":"2024-10-22T14:56:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T18:56:17","slug":"ask-a-priest-whats-the-point-of-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-whats-the-point-of-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"“Ask a Priest: What’s the Point of Heaven?”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Q: What is the purpose of eternal life? Eternity is a long time. The 5 billion years that Earth has theoretically orbited the sun is a blip of time compared to eternity. So what is eternal life for? I’m skeptical about heaven and eternal life being a place and time just to worship a God who is perfect and really has no need for worship. On Earth, as mortals, worship is more for us than God, but once a person is redeemed what would be the need to worship? Some people say heaven is some kind of blissful existence, but to me, that’s not a purpose. I actually find the idea abhorrent. I’d find it no more an incentive than if someone offered to wire the pleasure centers of my brain so I could sit and spend the rest of my mortal life in ecstasy. That is an empty life, bereft of purpose. I hope someone has an answer. \u2013 R.R.<\/address>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC<\/em><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0Heaven is where a person would be perfectly happy, being united with his Creator. And perfect happiness by definition wouldn’t be boring. We would be face to face with everything we want: ultimate love, ultimate truth.<\/p>\n

Heaven is actually hard for us to imagine. “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard,\u00a0and what has not entered the human heart,\u00a0what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthian 2:9).<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that we are restricted by our worldly way of thinking. We get annoyed at being stuck in traffic for 10 minutes. So we might be tempted to think that being “stuck” in the same place for eternity would be endless drudgery.<\/p>\n

But eternity in heaven isn’t endless drudgery. Rather, it’s a blissful “now.” And it will always be “now.”<\/p>\n

It certainly won’t be static, either. Why? Because we would be always learning more about an infinitely good and beautiful God. Since God is infinite, and we are finite, we will never run out of things to learn about God. This is why heaven will be always fresh and joyful.<\/p>\n

Moreover, we won’t be enjoying heaven solo. We will be enjoying meaningful relationships with all our brothers and sisters in Christ, with everyone in the great assembly who stayed faithful in God in this life.<\/p>\n

Certainly, God, being perfect and perfectly happy in himself, didn’t need us. But he created us to give us a chance to share in his happiness. We are the only creatures that God made for our own sake.<\/p>\n

For more reading see Peter Kreeft’s Heaven, the Heart’s Deepest Longing<\/em><\/a> or his Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven but Never Dreamed of Asking<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

And it’s good to keep in mind that if an eternity in heaven isn’t an appealing idea, the alternative isn’t any prettier.<\/p>\n

Keep learning more with <\/span>Ask a Priest<\/a><\/p>\n

Got a question? Need an answer?<\/h3>\n

Today\u2019s secular world throws curve balls at us all the time. AskACatholicPriest is a Q&A feature that anyone can use. Just type in your question or send an email to AskAPriest@rcspiritual.wpenginepowered.com<\/a> and you will get a personal response back from one of our priests at RCSpirituality. You can ask about anything \u2013 liturgy, prayer, moral questions, current events\u2026 Our goal is simply to provide a trustworthy forum for dependable Catholic guidance and information. So go ahead and ask your question\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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He was an assistant publisher of the National Catholic Register and Faith & Family magazine and an editor of the Zenit news agency\u2019s English edition. He has written for\u00a0SpiritualDirection.com\u00a0and\u00a0ePriest. Fr. McIlmail also worked in spiritual retreats in the Northeast, New England, the Midwest, and the South\u00a0and assisted with mission work in Mexico. Born in Philadelphia, he worked in journalism and was active in the pro-life movement before entering the novitiate of the Legion of Christ in 1992. His contributions to RCSpirituality include responding to\u00a0Ask A Priest\u00a0questions and sharing his insights in our\u00a0Weekly Newsletter.","url":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/author\/emcilmail\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153242"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=153242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}